ROI Design Calculator

Overview

Every design team eventually hits the same wall: the budget meeting. This calculator turns design work into the language that room speaks — conversion, retention, support costs — so the case for design walks in with numbers instead of adjectives.

The problem

Design's impact is felt everywhere but quantified almost nowhere. Leaders approve what they can measure — and when design can't show a number, it gets treated as a cost to trim instead of an investment that compounds. Good work loses budget fights to weaker work with better spreadsheets.

The approach

• 1

  Modeled the levers design actually moves — conversion, retention, support load — into a projection anyone can open, edit, and defend in front of a CFO.

• 2

  Designed sensible defaults so the first credible estimate takes 30 seconds — because a tool that needs an afternoon never gets opened.

• 3

  Made the output a board-ready summary that drops straight into the deck, because a number only matters if it travels.

The outcome

A shipped tool that moves design from the cost line into the revenue conversation — and hands every team that uses it the argument they were missing.